


an uncommon name

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: After an incident at the DEO, Alex is ordered to seek counselling, or talk to someone about the issues weighing her down. The counsellor at the DEO is a no go, no NDA is strong enough to divulge DEO matters to an external therapist, and there are some things that Alex can’t talk to even Kara about. So, Alex starts talking to a dead woman.Halfway across the city, Astra looks up at hearing someone say her name, in an oddly familiar voice.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I call this my “maybe Alex won’t go to therapy in the show but I can at least give it to her in a fic” fic.

Alex punches Agent Fanshawe on the day that they raid the home of yet another Fort Rozz escapee.

 

They break in the door to the apartment sometime around dawn, and the Andromedan inhabiting it - who goes by Cela on Earth - runs out of the living room, pointing some kind of pulser weapon at them, and really, Alex should have taken that as an indicator for how the rest of her day is going to go.

 

By the time her team has the escapee subdued and in a DEO holding cell, it’s afternoon, she’s almost out of patience, and the prisoner’s truculence isn’t replenishing it any faster.

 

“So much for the Alien Amnesty Act! What’s the point, if you’re just going to round us up like this, without a fair trial?”

 

“You were a prisoner on Fort Rozz,” Alex scoffs. “I think you’ve already had your trial.”

 

“For burglary!” the Andromedan hisses. “Check the records, asshole. I was sentenced to a term of 3  _ ahmzets _ in Fort Rozz, overseen by your precious sanctimonious Kryptonians. And when Krypton exploded? Did anyone let me out when my time was up? Did anyone give a shit when our prison almost got disintegrated in the Phantom Zone? Of course not!”

 

Alex holds back an urge to snap back, feeling overwhelmed and cornered in.

 

“We’re doing our due diligence by following up on all escapees,” she says. “I’m sure you’ve seen the news. You’ve seen how your fellow inmates have been tearing this city apart.”

 

The Andromedan - Cela - shakes her head, looking supremely unimpressed 

 

“A lot of us got out as soon as we crashed to Earth,” she says. “We didn’t want any part of that. I just wanted to live a normal life again. I met Gabe at this bar, and we got to know each other and-”

 

She frowns, mouth snapping shut as if realizing she’d said too much, and Alex remembers the photo that had been on top of the TV set in the apartment, of a laughing couple and a young girl standing between them.

 

“We still need to hold you, until we can do a thorough check into what you’re telling us,” she tells the prisoner. “I’m just doing my job.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what the Kryptonians said, too,” Cela replies, glaring at the ground and yanking her handcuffs again. “Until they weren’t around to do it anymore.”

 

Alex leaves the confrontation in search of J’onn, feeling supremely unsatisfied at the trajectory of it. She is waylaid, though, by Agent Fanshawe, who had been part of her team on the mission.

 

“About time we got her secured,” he grumps, rubbing at his bruised arm. “I almost missed lunch,  _ and _ Supergirl flying in for her official briefing. She said hi to me on her way out, though!”

 

“Yeah, that sounds like her,” Alex replies, somewhat absentmindedly, as she scans the operation floor for J’onn.

 

“She’s so nice!” Fanshawe enthuses, and Alex smiles instinctively. “Not like the rest of them, you know-”

 

The smile slides off of Alex’s face.

 

“And I mean, the Director too, of course,” Fanshawe says hurriedly, noticing it. “Although, I mean, he doesn’t smile as much. Or like, ever, really, but Supergirl, she’s-”

 

He blanches as Alex turns to face him, a vindictive fury who’s still got blood from a pulser wound trickling down from her forehead.

 

“Clarify the first statement,” Alex says. “Not like the rest of  _ who?” _

 

“Danvers, what the hell-”

 

“Clarify. That. Statement.”

 

When his blustering over the next five minutes fails to do so, Alex’s fist makes contact with his face.

 

\---

 

“What were you thinking, Agent Danvers?”

 

If Alex had thought her closeness to J’onn was going to earn her some free pass on the incident, the sight of him looming furiously over her dispels all thought of it.

 

“You know what he was saying,” she fires back. “What was I supposed to do?”

 

J’onn rubs his forehead.

 

“Not assault him,” he replies plainly. “To say your reaction was overboard is an understatement.”

 

Well, maybe Alex’s irritation from her talk with her Andromedan had fueled it her reaction. And maybe, just maybe, her own guilt too, because Fanshawe’s sentiments weren’t all that different from how she had felt mere months ago, at her lowest points, like after a night spent fighting particularly loathsome Fort Rozz escapees with rap sheets the length of the Missouri.

 

And there’s the other thing too, of course. The thing that Alex doesn’t really even want to acknowledge is a thing.

 

“Fine,” she says. “Chew me out, slap me on the wrist, whatever. Can I go back to doing my job now?”

 

Lucy, standing behind J’onn, frowns at that. J’onn’s slight downward tug of lips is a lot more potent, though, as far as disapprovals go.

 

“I’m taking you off active duty altogether,” he says. “At least, until you prove to me that you can interact professionally with your fellow agents.”

 

“It was one time!”

 

“Once is all it takes sometimes,” J’onn replies, before his voice softens just a little. “We are under increased scrutiny as it is, Alex, and this sort of thing isn’t going to help anyone, or help our case with the Pentagon.”

 

“I’m your best agent, J’onn!”

 

“And now you can take a shot at being my best pencil pusher,” he says. “And if you want a way out of it? You’ll go see Counselling right now, and see what you can do about convincing me that you’re working out whatever it is that you’re dealing with.”

 

Alex sags, knowing his brooks-no-argument tone when she hears it.

 

\---

 

“You need to talk to someone,” Dr. Nox says, looking at Alex over the sheaf of records that she had been looking at.

 

Alex blinks, and then frowns, but the head of the DEO’s counselling ward continues to look unimpressed.

 

“That’s why I’m here,” Alex points out.

 

“I mean, on a regular basis, Agent Danvers.” the counsellor elaborates. “Some of the things you’ve undergone shouldn’t be bottled away. I’d suggest scheduling regular appointments with one of our counsellors, or an external therapist, if you can have one vetted.”

 

“I don’t exactly live the 9 to 5 life that would allow for something like that. And are you seriously suggesting I go spouting off about the work I do here to some quack outside of these walls?”

 

“NDA forms can be drawn up for the quack of your choice,” the doctor replies, unruffled by the insult. “I’m sure the Director will allow you to schedule your work around it.”

 

“It was one incident,” Alex hisses. “J’onn told me to see you. I’ve seen you. Now why don’t you clear me for duty, and get back to treating agents who actually need help, instead of wasting your time with me?”

 

Dr. Nox shakes her head.

 

“I’m giving you conditional approval, contingent on whether you actually act on my advice,” she says, putting down the papers to sign them. “You’ll come back and see me in a week, and we’ll see if you’ve made any progress. If you haven’t...well, the Director can deal with that part.”

 

\---

 

Alex exits the medbay in a huff, but Dr. Nox’s suggestion persists in her mind, as she goes about her work. It tags behind her as she examines and catalogues the latest weapon hoard they had seized from an offworld smuggler. It looks over her shoulder as she types up her report to J’onn on the Andromedan. It rides passenger on her Ducati when she leaves the DEO, and sometime after midnight, when she has finished off a glass of red, Alex finally feels ready to entertain it.

 

The thing is, it makes sense. It makes sense in the same way that sister nights with Kara, where they both talk through things that are bothering them, calm her down. It makes sense in the way that talking to her mother, and just hearing Eliza Danvers say that she’s proud of Alex - now that they’ve moved past the constant disapproval thing - makes her happy.

 

Alex just doesn’t know  _ who _ to talk to, about the particular things weighing her down  _ now _ . 

 

Kara, normally the best choice, shouldn’t be subject to the conflict that’s been running roughshod over Alex’s brain. Her mom doesn’t have the clearance for it, and Lucy and Vasquez - while great for the odd night out for drinks - don’t have the context. The DEO’s counselling resources are limited, and Alex doesn’t feel right taking up their time when there are other agents who would need it more than her. And, of course, she knows better than to trust any external therapist, even with the strongest NDA that Pam from HR can draw up.

 

Alex is just about ready to give up on the idea, when a wild thought occurs to her.

 

She almost dismisses it, at first. Just considering it should probably get her stamped as  _ permanently  _ unfit for active duty.

 

Still...who else cares for Kara as much as her? Who else would understand the lengths that Alex was willing to go to, for her family? As long as Alex doesn’t say anything specific, anything that could be used against the DEO by anyone bugging her, what’s the harm?

 

The dead tell no tales, after all.

 

And maybe - a small and fanciful part of Alex thinks - maybe Astra would like to hear about what’s going on with Kara, from Rao’s light or wherever Kara believes that Kryptonians go in death, the same way Kara speaks to Alura’s hologram in hopes that her mother will hear her somehow.

 

Alex has never been a believer of anything except observable facts, but she’s curious, and before she can think better of it, the question pops up. What had Astra believed in? Had she kept her faith in Rao like Kara, or found comforting in something else, or nothing at all, during her escapades to the stars, during the imprisonment in Fort Rozz?

 

And so, Alex Danvers starts talking to a dead woman.

 

\---


	2. Chapter 2

The first night the voice speaks to her is jarring, because Astra is used to tuning out the sounds of National City.

 

Back in her half-remembered days of being an alien general stranded on this not-so-primitive planet, she simply hadn’t cared to distinguish between the conversations of the various humans. Later, after Kara had brought her back to Earth, she had retaught Astra that trick, because it had been agonizing to acclimatize to the bustle of the city, after getting used to the silence of space.

 

“It’s something my sister taught me,” Kara had said. “You just focus on one thing, one sound, and let everything else fall away. Pretty soon, it’ll become second nature to pick out what you need and discard the rest.”

 

And so, Astra had borrowed this habit of her niece’s, until it had indeed become second nature.

 

On this particular night, though, around what would be termed 2am by this planet’s system of measuring time, something happens to break this habit.

 

Astra is scribbling down some equations in the latest report that she plans to send to the city hall, focusing on the scritch of pencil against paper, when one word takes her out of her zone of focus.

 

“Astra?”

 

She has never heard that name being spoken by anyone in the city, aside from Kara, since her return. There are a fair number of Caras that seem to live here, a fact that had thrown Astra at the beginning of her stay, but never an Astra.

 

“Um, I don’t really know the protocol here, I guess. Am I supposed to say hi? Greet you? Like, hey Astra, how’s that space coffin thing working out?”

 

Astra inclines her head unconsciously, trying to parse the meaning of that.

 

“Well, never mind. I don’t think a ghost is going to berate me on my etiquette. But, well, maybe I can start off with an update on my sister. I think you’d like that.”

 

Astra frowns. The voice seems oddly familiar. Is this one of the members of her former army, one of those who had abandoned Non’s mission before Kara had thrown Fort Rozz into space? She does not remember any of them discussing a sister with her.

 

“She’s off to the White House tonight. Meeting with the head honcho herself... some kind of discussion over dinner, about the amended amnesty act that they’re rolling out. Can you imagine? My sister, giving input on state affairs?”

 

Astra inclines her head unconsciously, trying to parse the meaning of that. She has perfect command of individual words of this planet’s most common language. When strung together into whole sentences, though, they often confuse her.

 

“The funny thing is, though, I  _ can _ imagine it. She was always meant for bigger things than just being a pen pusher at some corporation. I just wish I hadn’t let my own insecurities blind me to seeing that sooner. But...better late than never, right?”

 

Astra shrugs, bemused, and tries to locate the direction of the voice, to see if there is someone in the vicinity - someone who must be this addressed Astra - replying to the speaker.

 

The next part of the conversation, though, puts an end to that theory.

 

“This is stupid. It feels stupid. I  _ sound  _ stupid, sitting here, talking to myself but addressing you. But...somehow, it feels less stupid saying this to you? Because, at the least, some part of me thinks that maybe you’d want to know what’s going in her life, if you were still around? Is that weird, Astra?”

 

Astra shakes her head instinctively. She barely remembers her supposed imprisonment in Fort Rozz, but pieces of memory float through her brain at times, of staring out through transparent walls into a black void, murmuring platitudes to herself just to keep sane.

 

“I almost had to kill an alien hostile again, yesterday.”

 

The words are uttered with a sigh, and in a low tone very different from the near-flippancy that the speaker had spoken with before. Somehow, Astra gets the feeling that this is what they had really been working up to.

 

“She’d shot this weird pulser thing at me, and she had one of my agents in a headlock. He was turning purple, Astra. I’d just unlatched the safety on my gun, when J - I mean, Hank - intervened and hit her with some kind of mental attack. She went all limp, and after that I don’t remember much, because I was just focusing on getting to her as fast as I can, and then on getting her to containment.”

 

Astra frowns, as similar situations she had faced prop up in her mind in a disjointed array, clamoring for attention.

 

“But, she said something, when we were taking her in and she had recovered a little. She said we were basically breaking down her front door to get to her. Was she supposed to not defend herself?”

 

Astra finds herself nodding automatically, growing protective for some reason.

 

“Anyway, Hank says he’s going to release her, because she hasn’t committed any crime on Earth that we can hold her for. We’re going to monitor her for a few months, though, just in case.”

 

The protective feeling recedes, and something like satisfaction takes its place.

 

“I don’t know, Astra. My world used to be so black and white. But ever since my sister, and then Hank, and then...you, I feel like I’m questioning everything that I’d just taken for granted.”

 

Astra nods again. There were a lot of things she had taken for granted on Krypton. She remembers disjointed fragments of them, remembers how devastating it had been to first learn the truth of her planet’s impending doom and its government’s mismanagement, and then to accept that it  _ was  _ truth.

 

“I wish I could talk about this with my sister, but, I mean, she puts up with that sort of thing enough as it is. Every time she turns on the TV, she has to hear some pretty vile rhetoric from Lockwood about people like her, you know? I can’t be adding my own screwups to that.”

 

Astra is focusing so hard on that low voice, to the exclusion of everything else, that she’s quite startled by the soft knock on her balcony window. 

 

She turns to see Kal-El there, waving through the window and smiling sheepishly. Everything else falls away at that, including the voice.

 

“Kara is held up at some kind of meeting with the President.” he says by way of explanation, when he makes his way in at her nod. “She asked me to fly by and see if you were alright.”

 

“The President?” Astra asks, frowning. Granted, she has not paid much attention to the petty politics of this world, and is therefore not familiar with the terms they have for their leaders, but- “I thought this country was a monarchy?”

 

“Come again?”

 

“There was a cat?” Astra ventures. “Kara called her a queen of some sort? She summons Kara sometimes, with that thing she calls a ‘cellphone’. The felines of your planet must be very advanced.”

 

Kal looks very confused for a moment, before breaking out into a great shout of laughter.

 

“You mean Cat Grant.” He says, “The Queen of All Media. That’s just Kara’s boss. Well, she  _ used  _ to be her boss. She kind of still is, I guess, as far as Kara is concerned. Not an  _ actual _ queen, though. Although... well, maybe she’d call that debatable.”

 

Astra nods slowly, still confused. Before she can pursue the subject, Kal hands the paper bag that he had been carrying to her. 

 

“Kara told me to get you these on the way.” he says, “They’re potstickers. She thought you might enjoy them.”

 

Astra takes the bag quite gingerly, seeing that the oil of whatever is inside has seeped through to the exterior. Most of this planet’s quick food repels her, but-

 

She bites into one, and quickly comes to the conclusion that, perhaps, she can make an exception for this particular quick food.

 

Kal laughs a little, as she scarfs four down in record time.

 

“Those are Kara’s favourite, too,” he says

 

Astra, remembering her niece’s ...eclectic taste, is of half a mind to be offended, but settles for a grudging nod.

 

“They’re not quite as good as the dumplings your mother used to make,” she says, choosing the closest word she can find on Earth for the Kryptonian delicacy that she has in mind, “but they’re quite tasty.”

 

She is used to silence in general, so the one following her statement does not strike her as uncomfortable, until she looks up to see Kal shifting slightly from foot to foot.

 

“My mother is Martha,” he says, sounding awkward. “Martha Kent.”

 

Astra looks back down to the contents of the bag, and nods. 

 

“Of course. My apologies, Ka ...Clark.”

 

He will always be Kal to her in private, though, she thinks, if only because that was the name that Lara had gifted him, after all her struggle to even be allowed to have him, and then save him.

 

“It’s fine,” the last son of Krypton mumbles, focusing eyes just like Lara’s on her, sounding just like her too. “So she, um...she liked to cook?”

 

He’s never asked her anything personal like this before. Astra has always gotten the impression that he’s wary of her, this one, even if he had helped Kara to bring her back, and to hide her. Still...Astra decides she owes him this answer, at least, as payment for that help.

 

“Lara? Once a while.” she replies. “She would always be after me to bring back recipes from other planets I was deployed in. I think she just liked the challenge of trying something new, even if her experiments were not always...edible.”

 

Kal snorts. Astra smiles in response to that unfamiliar sound, and almost forgets about the strange voice by the end of their quick conversation.

 

She remembers, though, when it starts up again the next night.

 

\---

On the second night, the voice speaks to her around 10pm.

 

“J- Hank chased me home early. I think Pam from HR complained to him about how much paperwork I was handing in to her.”

 

Yet another string of words that Astra finds hard to comprehend.

 

“On the plus side, I can actually see the top of my desk now. I found an old candy bar under all the papers. My sister grabbed it and ate it before I could throw it away.”

 

Astra makes a repelled face on instinct.

 

“I wonder...did you ever have to deal with that? Paperwork? Or were your systems so advanced that you don’t have to put up with it?”

 

Astra doesn’t remember much about what day-to-day operations had been like, as a Kryptonian general or on Fort Rozz, or even in her previous stint on Earth, but she has a few memories that have her snorting derisively. That approval on the Laurean mission that had gotten tied up in bureaucracy for six  _ lorakhs _ ? Advanced, indeed.

 

“Why am I asking you that, as if you can actually answer? I don’t know, I guess, except that this whole thing feels less strange when I pretend that you can. And I guess, also because...I’d have  _ liked _ to know the answer. There’s a lot I’d have liked to ask you, if we’d ever gotten the chance to talk. Which is kind of weird to admit, after everything that happened between us.”

 

_ But what had happened between the two of you? _ \- Astra wonders. And then, musingly -  _ Between the two of ... us? _

 

\---

 

On the third night, Astra looks up expectantly every time the clock strikes the hour, without reward. No voice speaks, complaining to an Astra in the void about the troubles of its day.

 

The clock hand turns to 4am before she finally extinguishes hope, and goes back to the plans that she had been working on, trying not to feel disappointed.

 

\---

 

On the fourth night, Astra has no space in her mind to feel hope or disappointment, because Kara returns, throwing herself through the window into her aunt’s arms with a shriek of delight, matched in intensity only by the tightness with which Astra holds on to her.

 

“Little one,” Astra murmurs into her niece’s hair, hair that feels almost like Alura’s in texture, like  _ hers _ , if she just closes her eyes. “I have missed you. How have you been?”

 

When Kara pulls back, she’s fairly glowing, although there’s a hint of apology in her eyes as well.

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop by earlier in the week,” she says, half-shyly. “I was at...well, the President kind of wanted to show me around Washington a little, and Nia was tagging along too, and Cat was there and then Lucy showed up and... well, we got a little caught up in everything.”

 

Astra nods like that sentence made perfect sense to her, but some of her befuddlement must have shown on her face, because her niece laughs, all crinkly eyes and face-splitting grin.

 

“I wish I could introduce you to Nia,” she says. “She’d love to meet another Kryptonian. And Lucy! She’d have fun explaining Washington bureaucracy just to see you explode.”

 

“I remember the Naltorian, but who is this Lucy?” Astra asks, frowning, “Another agent from that organization of yours?”

 

_ The organization that you said would arrest me if they find out I live _ , she doesn’t add on, but Kara seems to hear the unspoken words, because she looks truly regretful as she nods. 

 

“It’s just- I’m not trying to-” she fumbles and stops, looking awkward and pained.

 

Which pains Astra in turn.

 

“I have something to show you,” she says, grasping at the first distraction that comes to mind.

 

She pulls Kara to the other end of the apartment, towards the couch, in front of which her latest possession stands.

 

“Look,” she says, pointing with some pride at the oblong screen, “My coworker at the factory sold it to me. This is what you were bemoaning the lack of earlier, was it not?”

 

Kara’s first smile at the glimpse of the television screen dies as she circles back to Astra’s earlier sentence.

 

“Aunt Astra, you know you don’t have to work there,” she says, “I can put you up in my apartment, if money is the issue.”

 

Astra shrugs. Even beyond the fact that the work is merely temporary, and that forcing her niece to put her up would be mortifying, there is the fact that Kara had spoken of-

 

“Your sister,” Astra says. “That adopted one.”

 

“My sister, period.” Suddenly, there is steel in Kara’s words.

 

“That one.” Astra says, unable to quite concede on this arrangement that had been unheard of on Krypton. “Wouldn’t she find out?”

 

The intriguing sister, whose name Astra doesn’t know, and which Kara doesn’t volunteer. The woman who, it seems, also works at the agency that would arrest Astra, if they knew she was still alive.

 

Astra knows they’ve met. She remembers warm brown eyes whenever Kara mentions her, but she cannot for the life of her remember any other details. She had once overheard Kelex - that living memory database of Kal’s - informing Kara that perhaps Astra’s brain was trying to block certain memories out on purpose. 

 

Astra sometimes wonders what Kara’s sister could have possibly done to her, or she to Kara’s sister, to warrant such an accusation.

 

Kara shrugs uncomfortably at her question.

 

“I could figure out a way,” she mumbles.

 

She looks so crestfallen that Astra leans in to embrace her again, squeezing her until Kara finally giggles and shoves her way out of the hold.

 

At Astra’s encouragement, she puts a movie on that she markets to Astra as: “The greatest romance ever told on this planet! It almost comes close to the tale of Han-Ril and La-Fan!”

 

They talk through most of it, really, although some parts are so arresting that one or either of them shoots a hand out for silence, watching the screen intensely. By the time the movie ends,  Kara has definitely sniffled her way through half a box of tissues, and Astra has definitely  _ not _ scrubbed a few stray tears from her eye.

 

Then it’s time to snuggle up on the couch and talk some more, each simply marvelling at the chance to hear the other’s voice again. Eventually though, Kara chances a look at the clock, and gets up reluctantly.

 

“I have to go,” she admits. “I’ll need to be up early for a conference call with Miss Grant on how the meeting with the President went. She’s working on a whole month-long series on the amendments to the Amnesty Act, and what it means to ...you know, to us.”

 

“But you’ll come for breakfast the day after?” Astra insists, more intent on seeing her niece again, than on what this queen of hers has planned.

 

“After that French toast you made the last time?” Kara asks, eyes wide as saucers. “Duh!”

 

Astra shakes her head in mock-chastisement.

 

“You take after your father when it comes to your stomach,” she remarks, and Kara sticks her tongue out at her.

 

“Well, let me know if you need anything else,” her niece says, after a while.

 

Astra is about to shake her head, when something occurs to her.

 

“Yes,” she replies, just as Kara is moving out to the balcony.

 

Her niece looks back, and cocks her head expectantly. Suddenly, Astra is assaulted by a vivid memory of a young girl of nine - of  _ Kara _ \- tilting her head exactly like this, while Alura, slumped next to Astra on the seat, laughs her head off.

 

“ _ Aunt _ ?” Kara questions in Kryptonese, after a while.

 

For a second, Astra thinks it’s the young Kara talking to her, on her not-destroyed planet.

 

A second later, and she knows that it is the heartbreakingly grown-up Kara in front of her that had addressed her so, switching to their native tongue as if she had sensed the homeward trajectory of Astra’s inner thoughts.

 

Kara is now staring at her with concern.

 

_ “You wanted to ask me something,” _ she reminds Astra, still in Kryptonese.

 

“ _ Is Astra a common name in this world? _ ” Astra asks, in similar fashion.

 

She’s fairly certain that it isn’t, from all the research she had done on the Google, but Kara has a habit of alerting her to nuances of this world that Astra has missed. 

 

This time, though, Kara simply looks puzzled, before shaking her head.

 

_ “No. Why would you ask that?” _ she asks curiously. 

 

“I’m planning to look myself up on one of those genealogy websites you told me about.” Astra deadpans, switching back, and Kara rolls her eyes.

 

“Yeah, well, considering how Great-Aunt Ivara got around, you just might find something there,” she huffs, mock exasperated.

 

A delighted snort exits Astra’s nose before she can control it. What odd things outlive the death of a planet.

 

“You were  _ not _ supposed to hear those rumours,” she says, trying to sound reprimanding, but it’s hard when she’s trying hard not to burst into laughter. “You always were too nosy for your own good.”

 

“It’s not my fault Father liked to gossip over dinner!” Kara protests, grinning a little too brightly, as if refusing to let the harsher memories of their loss intrude on this tiny, precious nugget of happiness.

 

Astra thinks that it’s odd, the things one doesn’t miss, until they are torn away. The inter-family gossip currents, as ever interesting as they were annoying. Hearing something funny and storing it away in your memory to recount to your sister when you see her next, before realizing that  _ oh _ , she’s dead, along with everyone else on your planet.

 

She takes Kara’s lead, however, and smiles back wide. The expression still feels foreign to her facial muscles, as if she had spent many years without a need for it. If her spotty memory is correct, that just might be the truth.

 

But, Kara’s entire face lights up at the smile, before she gives Astra a final hug and flies off, and that’s worth the effort a thousandfold.

 

\---

 

“Astra?”

 

Astra wakes up in the middle of the night, ripped right out of her self-imposed slumber by that voice.

 

“Astra.”

 

The name is mumbled a few more times, but distractedly, as if the speaker is nerving themselves up.

 

_ “Yes?” _ Astra replies into the silence of the night, although it is ridiculous to think that whoever is listening could hear her, or understand Kryptonese.

 

“Astra, do you know what the worst thing is?”

 

_ “I suspect I’d find it hard to pick just one.”  _ Astra mumbles, sinking back into the soft sheets.

 

“For a second there, before he landed, I thought you were going to cave. I thought... everything was going to be fine.”

 

Suddenly, the unhealed scar in Astra’s chest twinges. 

 

“Maybe if I had had more time, I could have done something other than...other than what I did. Found a way better way. That’s what my sister likes to say, that there’s always a better way.”

 

_ “How odd,”  _ Astra replies, staring up at the ceiling, beyond it, charting the unfamiliar stars of this borrowed new home of hers. _ “My sister used to the say the same thing, too.” _

 

“Maybe she was right.”

 

_ “Or perhaps you should trust your judgment more, troubled one,” _ Astra murmurs.

 

After all, Alura had been proven conclusively wrong.

 

“She invited me to stay over last night, you know. It was nice to catch up, even if she’s like, a pretty big deal in Washington now, and between that, and the job, and her girlfriend, sister nights aren’t happening as much anymore. She skipped out on  _ Scandal _ tonight, can you believe?”

 

_ “I don’t know what that means.” _

 

“I miss her, Astra. Even when we’re hanging out, it’s like there’s something else there she can’t talk to me about, and I think I know what that is. I wish we could just ...just  _ talk _ about what happened, but she would just feel guilty and say she it’s okay, even though I know that there’s no way she can forgive me for ...for what I did.”

 

Astra nods in the darkness. That sentiment, despite their clearly different circumstances, is quite easy to understand.

 

A sudden chuckle.

 

“It’s weird...talking about this, just getting it out there, is helping more than I thought it would, although there’s no way I’m admitting that to Dr. Nox.”

 

_ “That is another sentence where half the meaning escapes me.” _

 

“Well, talk to you tomorrow, Astra.”

 

After that, there is only silence, as if the speaker had decided to retry what most humans considered to be a sane sleep schedule.

 

Astra sinks further down into the bedding, falling back on the rhythms that Kara had instilled into her. After her extra hours at the factory this week, on top of the nightly research work, it  _ does _ feel rather good to let herself be enveloped in the pillowy material of the blanket.

 

Before her eyes close, though, she murmurs something, a half-remembered shard of a past meeting.

 

_ “Goodbye, brave one.” _

 

\---


	3. Chapter 3

The job Astra has at the factory doesn't pay much, and the meticulous nature of the work assigned to her leaves little scope for imagination. Astra likes it, in a way. After all, it's only temporary, and it's something she didn't have to depend on Kara or Kal's mercy to get.

She's expected the long hours. She's expected that they'd be tiring, seeing as she's not fully healed from her wounds yet.

What she doesn't expect is that these humans like to talk. They want to make friends with you, and know things about you, and Astra can't just brush them aside as usual, because then Kara would be disappointed, and when Kara is disappointed, Astra has a hard time not feeling guilty.

Which is why she's manning the component placement machine as usual that day, which is her job, while listening to her helper drone about his hopes for some game or other, which is most certainly not her job.

"I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if they made it to the playoffs, but they didn't even make it past the second round!"

Astra doesn't deign to reply, as is her usual practice, but the amicable human - Remi - keeps talking, used to her laconic nature.

"It's been eight years." He pronounces the statement like a mournful dirge, as he slides in another tube of chips into the machine under Astra's watchful eyes. "Would be nice to have a chance for once, is all I'm saying."

Astra tunes him out, going back to the mind-numbing work of entering coordinates into the machine, until a scrape of metal against metal catches her attention. She looks up, to see Remi staring back at her, aghast.

"One of the arms stopped working," he says, pointing at the second robotic arm on the far side of the machine.

Astra catches the apprehensive look he sends toward their supervisor's office. She doesn't particularly care when her employer rages at her - the simple and glorious knowledge that she could snap his neck whenever she wants is enough to reign in her temper - but Remi seems terrified of him. Now that Astra comes to think of it, humans are afraid of a lot of inconsequential things.

She glances at the still-closed office door again, before crouching down to the side of the machine that hosts the circuitry that runs in. Prying apart the metal casing is easy, leaving her practiced hands free to inspect the damage.

"Careful!" Remi yelps, "You can get-"

Astra ignores him, plying the wires on the board apart, and studying the circuitry. The color coding and standards on this planet might be different, but the basic fundamental theories tend to hold up.

A few minutes of tinkering later, the robotic arm whirs back to life, and Astra lifts herself back into her seat.

"Huh." Remi looks over the machine apprehensively. "You sure it's ok?"

"Get the next batch," Astra says in response.

"That's some advanced stuff," Remi murmurs, even though he obediently brings her the next box of chips to program.

Astra tenses up, remembering Kara's warning to blend in. The man seems to sense her sudden reticence, because he stumbles a step back with the heavy box.

"I just mean, someone like you, with skills like that," he fumbles through his words. "What're you doing working at some place like this? You could get a nice cushy desk job, somewhere."

Astra wrinkles her nose, as the statement translates. "That does not sound... appealing."

"Ohhh." Remi nods knowledgeably, apparently back in the safety of familiar ground. "Office politics, right? My wife's a receptionist as this office downtown, and she's always going on about how much back-stabbing there is. Crazy."

For some reason, that strikes Astra as hysterically funny.

\---

Alex stalks around her makeshift personal lab at the DEO, picking up and slamming down various tools with a noise that she knows is loud enough to grate on J'onn's sensitive ears.

It isn't that she hates working in her lab. Sometimes, that's all she wants, after a tedious mission wraps up. The difference is that now she's stuck here, after J'onn had denied her clearance to go on even the simplest of recon missions, until he gets some form of positive feedback from Dr. Nox.

It would help, Alex thinks, if she actually had something to work on. But the only personal project she has on the go is at a standstill right now, thanks to some research she's still awaiting clearance from the Pentagon to access. Sulking in her chair and twiddling her thumbs at the ceiling can only stave off boredom and aggression for so long. 

Alex's idle gaze lands on the hexagonal object lying on the lab table that her feet aren't currently sprawled on. The Kryptonian hologram that Kara's mother had sent with her. Alex had dismantled it the previous week from its usual place in the hologram room, to do some regular maintenance on it, seeing as Kara doesn't seem to be spending so much time in there lately.

Come to think of it, Kara hasn't been spending much time in the DEO at all, except for her check-ins every morning. Alex frowns at the object, before hefting it over to her lap. She's idly checking it over, while brooding on J'onn's words, when her thumb brushes over the activation control and the machine sparks to holographic life.

Alex blinks at the blue-ish projection of Kara's mother in the air before her.

"Agent Alexandra Danvers. What do you require?"

"Um..." Alex is about to give the de-activation command, when she realizes that she doesn't have much else to spend the day on, anyway.

"Ugh," she rubs her eyes and sets her shoulders. "Fine, let's get to work." - she thumbs another command circle on the device - "Cycle through your databases. Three loops."

"Personal - History - Science - Metaphysical -"

The machines runs through the command without a hitch, looping through its folders of data while Alex leans back in her chair, nodding with eyes half-closed.

"Now test projection calibrations, and then proceed with color-testing" she murmurs, when it finishes.

She idly pokes her fingers at the 3D coordinates projected into the air, while the machine proceeds with her command, before throwing another baleful glance at the door. Beyond it, J'onn is no doubt briefing the other agents on their next mission: a routine task that he would usually delegate to Alex, as his most trusted subordinate.

Alex sighs, and proceeds down the list of other maintenance inspection procedures for the device. She'd put together that list herself, not that the device ever seems to need them. Once activated, it seems to have been built to last much longer than human lifespans with minimal interference needed, which is disquieting in itself, even without taking the alien origins of the device into account.

The device passes all her inspection procedures without a flaw, as expected, and Alex is about to call it a day, when her roving eye returns to the first test on the list that she had performed.

She's had opportunities to access many of the folders in the database before, due to having to deal with one alien threat or other, but she's steered clear of anything personal to Kara's family, figuring that's a matter best left to her sister.

Now, it's a perverse mix of boredom and pique that propels Alex to hover her fingers over the folder only marked by the El sigil, rather than any English translation. She taps it.

Videos, like the home videos her mom used to take, except they're 3D holograms. Photos that scroll by Alex's vision at dizzying speed. Files written in an older cursive Kryptonese script that she can't decipher. Official documents, maybe. They hold no real interest to Alex, who scrolls by them with careless flicks of her finger. 

The videos and photos are more interesting, though. Dozens of footage of younger Alura and Zor. Then dozens more of baby Kara, her growth meticulously tracked through every year by the obviously doting parents that her mother and father had been. Alex flips past them, smiling unconsciously at the chubby cheeked baby growing up right before her eyes, before her finger flips to another file, and the smile freezes on her face.

It's a video of Astra side by side with Alura, them hoisting a young Kara between them at what clearly appears to be some kind of celebration for her. 

Alex glares at it, fascinated and repelled in equal terms at this younger image of the woman she had stabbed through the heart.

Kara hadn't told her Astra could smile like that. 

Alex doesn't regret killing Astra. She probably never will, any more than she regrets killing any of the other opponents she barely knew. The only thing she'd really known about Astra at that time was that she was a threat to J'onn's life. A terrorist, even if Kara would hate for her to use such a word to describe her aunt. 

So, no, Alex doesn't regret killing Astra. 

It's just never occurred to her that terrorist Astra was also the same Astra that smiled like that, had drawn her sister to her so lovingly like that, and deposited a kiss to her forehead, just like Kara often does to Alex.

\---

Remi is waiting by the machine for Astra, when she clocks in the next day. That makes her instantly suspicious, because the human usually takes that precious time before their supervisor arrives to gather with his friends in the break room.

"What do you want?" Astra asks, as soon as she nears him, with her usual skills for conversation.

"Hey!" He looks injured. "Who said I wanted anything?"

Astra raises an eyebrow at him, and he gives in.

“It’s just, the kid’s got an appointment with the dentist, and today’s the earliest I could get, and you know how it is with kids and cavities-"

Astra frowns, as the words translate individually in her head, without making coherent sense together. Not that she’s particularly interested in having them make sense.

“And well..." Remi starts stepping from one foot to the other, rushing to keep up with her as she strides past him to the machine. “With traffic and all, I’m gonna need to leave about an hour early today, and you know the boss writes you up for that.”

“And?” Astra asks, her disinterest unfeigned.

She feels, rather than sees, Remi sag in disappointment.

“Come Astra, it’s an emergency. Help a brother out.”

"You are not my brother," Astra tells him, bemused.

“I just need you to clock me out for the day,” he insists. “Make sure the boss doesn’t see.”

Astra considers the request. She doesn’t care one way or the other; humans' idea of emergencies mean nothing in the larger scale of things, she's come to learn. On the other hand, his face looks so very hopeful, and it’s a simple enough request to fulfill, considering their supervisor barely makes it outside his office for the majority of the day.

"Very well."

"Alright!" Remi looks so relieved that Astra feels disquieted by it, feeling that something isn't right somewhere.

That is, until he starts extending a fist toward her, still smiling.

Astra stares at the outstretched fist. It hangs in the air for many seconds, with him looking at her expectantly, until Astra reaches and tentatively taps it with one finger.

“Okay,” Remi says, looking disconcerted for a second, before his previous cheer comes back. "Really, thanks though!”

As if afraid she might change her mind if he waits too long, he rushes away to the shelves, busying himself with getting down the chips they need for the day.

Humans, Astra decides, as she stares after him, are strange and utterly impossible to understand.

\---  
Alex stares at the glass in front of her, then at the bottle she had left on the kitchen table last night, before a groan erupts from her mouth that coincides with the rumbling in her stomach. It’s too early in the morning for alcohol, and frankly, she needs something stronger than wine to deal with whatever the fuck is going on in her brain that had made J’onn decide to further demote her from desk duty to a straight up forced vacation for the next week.

Alex doesn’t know why he thinks she needs more time to herself to “get better”; she’s self-aware enough to know she’s her own worst enemy, on days like this. It’s more manageable when Kara is around, but Kara has her own life, and a lot more places to be than she used to have, and Alex thinks that’s it, really.

Because having someone around might not “heal” her, or whatever J’onn was muttering when he chivvied her out, but at least she can forget the chaotic thoughts in her head for a little while. But Kara’s busy and Lucy’s out of town and Winn is... well, Alex is pretty sure she’s not allowed to contact Winn in the future just because she’s feeling lonely. That leaves Brainy, and since the Coluan might be the one person she knows who’s even worse at small talk than her, Alex just doesn’t feel up to the effort just then.

She stares down with unfocused eyes at the textbook balanced on her crossed legs, the same one she’d fallen asleep over the previous night, figuring she might as well get some research done for her project while she’s grounded. Which is what she is, Alex thinks, chucking the book savagely at the opposite wall, no matter how roundabout J’onn might have phrased it.

The book thuds satisfyingly, before bouncing back to the floor. Alex briefly considering getting it, before shaking her head and moving on to the next one in the pile by her leg. More than half the collection is her mother’s or father’s, the rest being made up of bits and pieces that Alex has collected over her years of study. None of them hold what she’s looking for, which isn’t a surprise because only one scientist other than her had thoroughly studied Kryptonian culture. Alex would wager her mother is the best bioengineer she knows, she’s learned most of what she knows about Kryptonian physiology from her, but Jeremiah Danvers had been the one who studied Krypton’s writing and cultural output, and it’s not like he’d had a chance to publish much of his research, before the Cadmus has stolen him away.

Alex grits her teeth. She won’t think about that again. Why had she thought taking these books out was a good thing? It only ever ends up with her remembering her father, and getting angry over his betrayal again. 

With a sigh, she puts away her notes and leans back in the sofa, rubbing her forehead. Kara will probably stop by soon just to check in, and she should clean up before that. Just now, though, she just wants to sit there, numb to things. Her father won’t leave her mind, though... just the first in a long list of fucked up things in her life that Alex should have had better control over. 

The worst part is, with some distance from the problem, she can see why her father had made the decisions he did. From his point of view, there had been no good choices, so he’d chosen the least bad one. And, when Alex is running on a mix of sleeplessness and wine, as she is right now, she can admit that the reason she’s so angry at him is because she herself has had to make that choice so many times, ever since he’d disappeared from her life.

Had there been a better way to get information out of that Cadmus operative that J’onn had had to pull her off of? Maybe there had been, maybe there hadn’t. Alex had justified it to herself at the time; time was of the essence, the quickest way to get the relevant intel was to beat it out of him. She isn’t so sure of that, looking back, not when anger and fear had fuelled so many of her decisions that day. 

And that, of course, rears other heads of regret. What she’d done to that asshole in M’gann’s bar. How she had driven a sword clean through Astra. She had told herself at the time, she had done what she had to do.

“Why couldn’t you have just given up, Astra?”

The question comes out as a shout, and Alex realizes that she has been speaking out loud all along, to the imaginary phantom in her head. 

“Ugh.” 

Briefly, she considers banging one of the textbooks against her head, to literally beat sobriety into herself. It’s not the healthiest way to go about things, but then neither is talking to a dead person.

Other than that talking to said dead person does, oddly, make her feel a little better. 

\---

“Why couldn’t you have just given up, Astra?”

Astra stares, unseeing, at the machine she’s supposed to be monitoring, as the words assault her ears. All of a sudden, it feels like a damn bursts, and memories come flooding back.

The voice. Alex’s voice. Alex. Kara’s sister. No wonder Kara had been so skittish about Astra knowing anything about the DEO. She’d been afraid of Astra bumping into the woman who had killed her.

“-Stra? Astra? Hey, Astra!”

Astra jerks back from her thoughts to the sound of Remi shouting at her. She must have glared at him, because he quails for a second, before pointing meekly at one of the box of chips on the machine.

“It’s just, that set isn’t falling into place right. I think the coordinates must’ve got mixed up, somehow.”

Pursing her lips, Astra realigns the coordinates on the terminal, avoiding Remi’s curious gaze.

\---

Why couldn’t you have just given up?

The question follows Astra home, intruding through her nightly research, and even chasing her into an uneasy sleep.

Peace hadn’t been easy for her to accept, when she had returned.

If given the choice, she doesn't think she could have chosen to leave her army behind and cross to Kara's side. She had unified Fort Rozz from chaos into a solid group bent towards one cause. To stray from that course would have been disastrous, for more people than just her.

When she had been brought back to life, though, Non was already dead, and the rest of her army scattered in space. At that point, there had been no choice left to make. In many ways, Kara's bracing presence had made accepting that stark reality easier.

And Astra has accepted it. She'll try again. With science, this time, and diplomacy. She would try the way that Kara would be proud of.

In a way, Astra realizes with some humor, despite all her words entreating Astra to join them, killing her is the best thing Alex Danvers has ever done to help her.

If only she can help Alex back, who seems so troubled that she willingly takes refuge in speaking to enemies she thinks to be long dead.

But how?

It is a few days later, and Astra is almost close to giving up on ideas, when an strikes her.

\---

Alex takes refuge in the library near her apartment for the rest of her unvolunteered vacation.

She finds herself becoming engrossed in the books, and not just in the scientific texts that she usually peruses due to her line of work. Books she used to co-read with Kara as teens catch her attention, and she finds herself rereading them, just to see if they're as good as she remembers them being. (Surprisingly often, they are. Sometimes, horrifyingly so, they’re not. She must have been overcompensating for the gay thing with Twilight.) 

She snags herself one of the comfortable cushioned chairs by the window every morning, and stares outside periodically, unable to hold back a smile at the sunlight streaming into her face, sunlight that she rarely gets to see while stuck down in the caves that comprise the DEO headquarters. 

Maybe, Alex reluctantly concedes to herself, J'onn is on to something.

On the third day of this newfound routine, she’s ambling out of the library near closing, feeling unusually peaceful and lethargic, when the cart of de-catalogued books for sale near the exit catches Alex's attention. She's in the habit of passing her eyes over those books, whenever she visits, even if such visits have become infrequent in recent years. There's rarely anything useful there, but occasionally she finds an old textbook or CD to add to her collection.

Alex's half-bleary gaze is roving over the usual dull rows of offerings, when her heart skips. Her hand shoots out to grasp the battered tome stuck between a romance novel and a tenth grade physics textbook.

It can’t be. There was only one edition published, and a small run at that.

Another look at the title, just to double-check that it is what she thinks it is, and Alex is striding towards the library clerk's desk, rummaging in her jacket for the quarters that she needs to pay for it.

It’s not until the librarian has handed the book back to her after payment - after a puzzled look at the spine of it - and Alex has hotfooted it out of the library, that she dares to take another peek at the book, to leaf through its front pages, and verify what it is she’s truly holding.

She needn’t have worried, though. The book hasn’t transfigured into something mundane in the short time between her finding it. It’s still matted and dog-eared, and Alex can still make out the text on the front clearly, underneath all the creases.

An introductory guide to learning ancient Kryptonese by Dr. Jeremiah Danvers.

She’s so excited by her find that she doesn't realize until much later, after she'd devoured it from back to front three times over, that de-catalogued books still tend to have the library's stamp in the pages, and the catalog sticker on their spines, and this books sports neither. An odd anomaly, one that Alex doesn't bother herself too much with.

\---


End file.
